Just kidding.

Gov20ne was an Unconference, which basically means that other than a few short “lightning talks” the participants decide the agenda for the day. Rather than talks or presentations, each sessions is more like a facilitated discussion. It’s an incredible setup; very bottom-up, and like any bottom-up process much more likely to produce emergent phenomena. In this case, of course, what emerged were fascinating collective discussions on a myriad of topics related to web 2.0 technologies and their integration into government practices.

The day started out with a mass-introduction; each of the hundred-or-more participants grabbed the mic, introduced themselves, and said three words related to them. The results of this three-word exercise were pretty fascinating:

public safety researcher, spatial, learn, drupal, we need help, budget, spring, beer, online data visualization, open, nonviolent youth empowerment, technology, transportation, data collection, exchange, stories, save the press, go red sox, progressive, collaboration, accessibility, sustainability, public service, conversation, wired for war, transparency, trust, mobile, catalyst, decentralized, humanize, empower, community engagement, communicate, listen, digital inclusion, great visual stories, always move forward, knowledge, enable, information not data, yoga, synergy not silos, agility, people, sense of humor, productive online conversations, user-centered strategy, disruptive-transformative, ideas into action, collaboration beyond superficiality, civic moral responsibility, pimp my government, internet for everybody, domestic violence prevention, accountability, open saves lives, local politics happen, culture trumps strategies

(My three words, appropriately, were “incredibly random citizen.”)

I’ll spare a blow-by-blow account of the whole thing. If you’re wondering something particular, you’re welcome to ask questions in the comments. I’d rather just cover the highlights of my day:

I went to three sessions. The first was a Geographic Information Services/Mapping session. It was interesting but was, I think, missing a key component: the map is not the territory. Crowdsourced mapping is okay, but we need experienced crowdsourced mapping to be effective. Signal-to-noise ratio. However, the open-data talk was interesting and necessary.

Second I stopped off at the Twitter session, but I was conflicted. Stayed for about half the time and then made my way to the Foreign Policy session, which was an utterly fascinating discussion about how techs may influence foreign policy and vice versa. I ended up annoyed at myself for not going to the whole session. Lots of talk about cultural context and decentralization. Fascinating discussion on a (possibly government-facilitated) version of Chatroulette for reasons like cultural diversity and entrepeneurial mentorship and sharing. Sort of an international pedagogical chatroulette. Second Life, one of my favorite subjects, was also covered a bit.

Third session I went to was Disaster Response, covering subjects like Ushahidi. We had some fascinating and knowledgeable and experienced people there talking about how to crowdsource the response to a major disaster like Haiti as well as the problems encountered. The consensus from people that knew what they were talking about (read: not me) was that the response to Haiti changed disaster response in two huge ways: crowdsourcing and mapping. The World Bank apparently funded some incredibly mapping efforts including a high-resolution flyover and in-depth review of the flyover that included experts rating the damage to every single building in Port Au Prince.

Fascinating stuff.

I had to beg off on the post-conference happy hour, which saddened me. But I got up this morning to go through my pages and pages of notes not only on what was said but what I need to learn about. So far I’ve added about twenty new Google Alerts and half a dozen blogs.

Gov 2.0 Camp New England was a great time, and I’m very glad I went. Populating it were great and intelligent people interested in not only sharing their ideas but listening to others, which was great to see. And despite my worries there was a constant emphasis on people, not just technology.

That emphasis is the most important and heartening thing I saw.

“Uh, yeah. I’m a writer. Kinda. That’s pretty much it. Oh and a police dispatcher. But, uh, pretty much a conference-virgin and not involved in the business or government at all.”

Yeah, I’m pretty outclassed. But that’s never stopped me before!

Looks to be a fun, great day though. Hope the rest of you have a great day too, whatever you may be doing.

And if you wanna follow along, the twitter hashtag is #gov20ne and it’s being livecasted here.

(And before my friend Suzanne says anything, no, Suzanne, I don’t have a problem with Jews and am thus phonetically generalizing to the JooJoo.)

(Hello, Suzanne.)

But what happened to decently named products? Gadgets especially. My seething rage over the JooJoo led me to a short, informal survey of tech product names in the news. You can assume that since I’m bothering to write it up, the results did not please me.

My first stop on the Marketingfail Highway was, unsurprisingly, Palm. Now, they’ve got a tough time here, with the connection between stereotypically sweaty palms and (gasp!) masturbation. But product failure enters the picture when you name your new hit phone the “Pre.” I mean, the masturbation/premature ejaculation jokes pretty much write themselves at this point with no help from me.

Let’s move on.

How about the HP Mini? I mean given the amount of penis envy there is in the world (I’m anecdotally extrapolating here between sports cars, Hummer ownership, and internet-based pissing matches) do you really want to name a product “the mini”? It’s understandable that HP wants to accentuate the portability of it, but there are so many better ways to do that. The “HP Super Awesome Midget” for example. The SAM, people! Or even better, the “HP Karate Midget,” to steal a meme from Scrubs. Why not go literal? I would totally buy the “HP Small-but-will-fuck-you-up-in-a-New-York-Minute.” But the Mini? No way.

(If you’re wondering at this point, my personal netbook is an Asus Eee-PC. How can you not smile at “Eee!”? It’s a clear and convincing expression of joy. It’s how the word “glee” ends. It is, I daresay, an acceptable verbal outburst during orgasm. I pull out my netbook and think “Eee! I’m about to write something brilliant! Or look at porn! In either case there will be joy and pleasure.” This is why I Have an Eee PC and not a…pfft…Mini.)

Let’s talk Motorola, guys. I saw the “Cliq.” And scoffed. And scoffed some more. Ignore for the moment the fact that “Cliq” gives us not one iota of information about what it does or how well it does it. It’s a “social media phone.” But the simple act of clicking in social media settings gives me no immediate frame of reference, good or bad. How many times has each of us regretted a click on Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere? Accepting a friend request, enabling a spammy application, drunkenly posting a status updating regarding spermburps or hemorrhoids? Clicking, or well, Cliqing, can lead to disaster.

And how close is that to “clit”? That’s an awesome frame of reference right there. “Hey Amanda, what are you up to?” “Oh I’m just sitting around thumbing my Cliq!”

Okay then.

Now that we’ve touched upon some failures, let’s talk about naming successes. You successfully name a product by either letting us know what it does or letting us know that it is absolutely mindblowingly awesome and badass. Start naming stuff “the Sniper.” And I don’t care what it is or what I have to do to get it but if you name your product “The Mindfuck” I WILL BUY IT.

That’s right, marketers. The Mindfuck. Go big or go home. SELL ME YOU BEAUTIFUL BASTARDS, SELLLL MEEEEE.

How about consumables? I’m a coffee man myself. Live on the stuff since I’m too busy thinking up this shit for you to get some sleep. But come on, even with the more recent Galactica, Starbuck is a dated name. Green Mountain sounds moldy, plus: I’ve never been there! How the hell do I know if they have good coffee on Green Mountain? Get some straight-to-the-pants marketing going. Roadhead Coffee. “Start your day with Roadhead. You won’t regret it!”

Yep, I went there.

Are there well-labeled products out there? Absolutely. Example one is Microsoft’s Sidewinder series of keyboards and gaming gear. First off, we already know they’re awesome. There are sidewinder snakes and sidewinder missiles and few things are cooler (or more phallic) than snakes or missiles. Now since we’re talking computer gear we’re talking gaming, so let’s elevate the missile frame to primary. Having something named the Sidewinder will put you in a fully-armed Cockpit of Cool.

Cultural references are good too. This one may be a little dated, but I love the Haleron HAL. Before I even know what it is I want one just in the hope that I can somehow program it to say “I can’t allow you to do that, Dave.”

In a more general sense, there’s Android. It’s an operating system called Android! This is possibly the most geeky, full-of-potential name I have ever encountered. You say “android” and I get images of automaton robots making my meals, doing my dishes, taking care of all the menial detritus in my life so I can kick back a little more. Google is telling me to relax, lay back, or conversely party a little harder if I want. They’ve got shit covered. My android has got shit covered.

Now that I’ve walked us through dos and don’ts, there’s one last piece of business to take care of. No more of this “first-gen” “second-gen” fuckery! No. More. Your Whatever-Gen device will always be numerically bested by its descendant. That’s crap, guys. Sequential generation labeling is the easy way out. Get more creative. Something more descriptive and evocative. Let’s try a thought experiment; use any product you like.

First you have “the Sniper.” Next, what? Sniper 2? Sniper-Second Generation? No, no, no. The second version was not born of sperm and womb from previous Snipers. It simply appeared fully-formed by the sheer power of its own Awesome. It doesn’t owe that first Sniper anything! So the new one is something like “The Sniper That Beat Up The First Sniper In High School.” Or maybe “The Sniper That Eats Older Snipers For Freaking Breakfast.” Third gen is labeled “The Fucking Ultimate Sniper” or perhaps “The Sniper That Banged Your Friend’s Sniper’s Mother.”

You getting it? Descriptive. Evocative. Badass. Use words like Ultimate, Awesome, Un-goddamn-beatable! None of this “JooJoo” babytalk crap. Nothing that could bring up memories of seeing your friend in the stirrups and popping out a fresh one in her facebook album. No simple numbering schemes.

Fly in a fully-armed Cockpit of Cool, my friends.

OK Go has a fantastic music video featuring a Rube Goldberg machine, if you haven’t seen it.

The journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts had a study on creativity and mental illness:

The link, if any, between creativity and mental illness is one of the most controversial topics in modern creativity research. The present research assessed the relationships between anxiety and depression symptom dimensions and several facets of creativity: divergent thinking, creative self-concepts, everyday creative behaviors, and creative accomplishments. Latent variable models estimated effect sizes and their confidence intervals. Overall, measures of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety predicted little variance in creativity. Few models explained more than 3% of the variance, and the effect sizes were small and inconsistent in direction.

Warren Ellis’ Tee of the Week is up, and I want it really badly. But I just got one, so I probably shouldn’t. Blah, dilemmas! Doctor Whisky.

First was the World Policy Journal, the winter issue of which is dedicated entirely to water resource issues. Statistics like India’s water demands outpacing supply by fifty percent in 20-30 years scare the hell out of me. The whole issue is a fascinating read on a subject that I haven’t paid enough attention to previously.

Second source is NPR’s Intelligence Squared program. The program features Oxford-style debating between two teams of three, and one of the more recent regarded the motion: “California is the first failed state.” While the discussion was academic, the implications can be rather frightening given the alternate reference for “failed state.” It invokes the spectre of countries like, say, North Korea. Rogue states that operate without regard for international law. The tongue-in-cheek implication raised the image of California seceding and mobilizing to militarily annex resources from surrounding states.

The actual content of the debate was less Mad Max and more simply tragic, regarding the disastrous state of the state of California, but carried undertones of both hope and government failure, two favorite themes of the postapocalyptic genre.

From Richard Kadrey’s Twitter, a Salon article on what readers wish writers knew.

The Guardian asked writers for their ten rules of writing.

Via CONSTANT SIEGE, an interview with graphic designer Paula Scher that, as SIEGE notes, is worth a read for anyone in a creative field at Pr*tty Sh*tty.

Personally, I feel depressed if I don’t think my work is evolving or if I am not making discoveries. I find I tend to work in cycles where I make a personal breakthrough, evolve it for a period of time, get known for it, and then try to abandon it and find something else.

New York Times article on Macmillan’s DynamicBooks textbook venture, which allows professors to edit digital versions of textbooks for their class down to changing words, sentences and paragraphs without permission from the publisher or authors. I anticipate fuckery from the fundamentalists ordering digital editions of science books and then editing the hell out of them. Macmillan seems to be depending on individuals to report such malfeasance, as far as I can tell.

Endgadget on an upcoming e-reader from Spring Design called Alex. Dual-screen model shown looks kind of neat. List price looks to be $359.

Futures Thinking:

The Basics
Asking the Question
Scanning the World
Mapping the Possibilities, Part One
Mapping the Possibilities, Part Two
Writing Scenarios

I’d provide some half-assed analysis or something here, but honestly I’d rather let his entries (which are just long enough to be useful and just short enough to be accessible) speak for themselves.

Like I didn’t have enough already.

In any case, while not dealing with ungodly precipitation or impending death I’m busy sitting here thinking about information. And viruses. And crossover.

There’s a controversial type of psychotherapy called EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It involves the patient using eye motion to desensitize the brain to painful and traumatic memories (among other uses). (I should note that the eye movement is paired with more conventional therapies and may just be window dressing unrelated to the outcome). But in any case assuming something like EMDR works and eye movement can directly effect neurological process, what’s to stop someone from using that in a nonconsensual way?

Take retinal scanners. These are the biometric methods that scan unique capillary structures to provide identification criteria. They’re in just about every modern spy movie, as well as government and high-tech buildings. They’re also finding more commercial uses now through ATMs and other venues. It looks like they’re pretty ubiquitous in visions of the future, which makes them immediately interesting to me.

What’s to stop a sufficiently talented programmer from creating a virus that uses an EMDR-like technique? Bend towards the scanner to ID yourself for a purchase at Starbucks and suddenly you’re infected through a series of almost imperceptible eye movements.

Infected with what?

Maybe your last trauma disappears. Maybe all your past traumas disappear. Maybe fear gets reprocessed into anothe area of the brain, reprocessed into another emotion.

The virus that killed fear.

Eh? Eh?

Were it possible, I wonder what else you could do with that idea. Reprogram the brain? Short-circuit it into an epileptic seizure? Massive increase or decrease in the libido (yes, yes things always eventually come back to sex for me). What about wiping someone’s memory entirely and leaving them standing and drooling at an ATM?

Delays could be built in, ticking neuropsych time bombs counting down until…what?

Would mutual crossover be achievable? Could a person so-programmed relay malicious code into a retinal scanner through their eyes?

Going back to the ATM-application of scanners, think of coding the information contained in the movement of your retinas or structure of your capillaries so that, once scanned, ATMs open up to you like so many cylon piggy banks. Or perhaps code your retinas to spread neuromalware to whoever else gets scanned by that machine or that entire network.

My eyes will open doors that should have remained locked to me…